TFNation 2022 (First Draft of TF:TM explained)
- Thread starter MrBlud
- Start date
Looking over my report, I just now realized there was one image I meant to post during the Act 3 portion but forgot to (it's there now, though): The Entity transforming Planet Unicron:
I always liked the Entity prototype, but I'm still surprised how good this looks.
Chris has started redoing the panel in twitter thread form. Currently at the end of Act I at time of writing:
For being incomprehensible, I’m surprised how many of those ideas carried over to the other early script that featured the Anibots. Also, could this possibly explain why most of the pre-movie characters in the final film were season 1 (barring the coneheads and Grapple)? Like we know storyboards featured some 85 guys, but if this version kept getting reworked, I can see why no 85 characters made the cut.
Transformers The Movie First Draft – Write Up By Chris McFeely
The very first draft of the classic "The Transformers: The Movie" was recently revealed at TFNation, presented by Jim Sorenson and Chris McFeely for all the attendants. This was the first script written for the movie, outlined in late summer 1984 and finished by February 1985. A copy was for...
news.tfw2005.com
All sorts of fun stuff in this one. Some of my favorites
-There was a one-eyed, grizzled Sherman tank character named... Tanker. Appears that he was replaced with Kup.
-Arcee was a medic and was odd coupled with Wheeljack (who was apparently misogynistic towards Arcee? Glad that never made it to the screen)
-Rails the autobot transport, turns from a train, to a hover train, into a ROBOT EFFIN' SNAKE!!! I know what I want for the next titan.
-Ultra Magnus doesn't become "Ultra" until he gets the matrix, also Magnus didn't have an altmode yet, but some suggestions were a harvester with thresher blades” or “a gasoline truck with huge battering ram bumpers”
-Springer is described as "Arnold Schwarzenegger-like"
-Mentlar, the big headed Autobot with a radar truck alt-mode. (Seems like he got replaced with Perceptor)
-Blurr is described as “a slow-talking Jimmy Stewart sort” (Is this a prank?)
-Lithones were supposed to be rock robots, Kranix was originally Granix. Imagine, Transformer Rock Lords
-The JUNKIONS wind up being Unicron's creator
-Grimlock befriends a junkion named "Scrapo" who teaches him that girls are cool too.
-The idea that unicron is presented as just the planet and his voice was believed to be a different entity, until the end of movie reveal, is kind of a cool one.
-Galvatron is defeated by Daniel's mom (Daniel is not the son of Spike and Carly in this draft) and Daniel is the one to open the matrix and kill Unicron.
In fairness, I had no idea, and I've seen that thread listed here. The thread title doesn't exactly say much about the first draft, after all, and speaking for me personally, I don't tend to click on many threads for events I haven't been to (because why torture myself?).
Yeah, "we already have a thread for this" and "we already have a thread that covers this, but you'd never know it unless you read it for unrelated reasons" aren't really the same thing. I'd heard about the script from other sites, but I would've never known there was a discussion about it here without this thread.
"We already have a thread for this."
"A thread? I eventually had to go down to the TFNation thread to find it."
"That's the movie first draft thread."
"By entering the URL manually."
"Ah, well, the links had probably gone."
"So had the HTML."
"But look, you found the coverage, didn’t you?"
"Yes," said UndeadScottsman, "yes I did. It was on display under three nested spoiler tags in a comment at the bottom of page 17 from a banned user named BewareOfTheLeopard."
"A thread? I eventually had to go down to the TFNation thread to find it."
"That's the movie first draft thread."
"By entering the URL manually."
"Ah, well, the links had probably gone."
"So had the HTML."
"But look, you found the coverage, didn’t you?"
"Yes," said UndeadScottsman, "yes I did. It was on display under three nested spoiler tags in a comment at the bottom of page 17 from a banned user named BewareOfTheLeopard."
It does now
And then the earth is destroyed by Vogons anyway...
To be clear, I meant that the lack of 85?characters in the final movie was a carry over from this script. We know at least some 85 guys were around because they’re on storyboards/final film. Does anyone know the date of the final draft?
I guess in likening the lack of 85 to the idea that the thing Optimus passes on kills Unicron. The concept was there from day 1. Even as more characters became available and revisions were made, they didn’t bother adding them because this draft, not the final one, lacked 85 characters.
Not sure if I’m making sense.
I get what you're saying. The movie's production was going on at the same time as Season 2's production, but not by all of the same people as those working on Season 2. And at that point, only the Season 1 characters had been fully established, so the team working on the movie wouldn't have been as familiar with the new additions to the cast in Season 2, especially since (going by the episodes' production order) the first third of Season 2 still focused primarily on the Season 1 cast. It wasn't until the "Dinobot Island" two-parter that Season 2 got a sudden expansion in its character roster.
As for the final draft, TFWiki has a production timeline for the movie, but doesn't seem to note the date of the final draft. Logically, it would have been at some point before the dialogue recording, which is dated to September 10-11, 1985:
I was more talking about how the movie didn't have "every" Season 2 robot character. You're right that there were some.
Well, unless I'm forgetting something; we don't see every Season 1 character either.